LGBTQ Groups Offer Biden Key Agenda Blueprint
President-elect has long to-do list after anti-queer havoc Trump wreaked for four years
BY MATT TRACY
LGBTQ and allied organizations
have unveiled
several comprehensive
lists of recommendations
for President-Elect Joe Biden to
help guide him on quuer issues as
he prepares to take offi ce in January.
The Movement Advancement
Project, the National Center for
Transgender Equality, the Equality
Federation, GLSEN, the Center
for American Progress, and SAGE
outlined a 10-point action plan
and prioritized a slate of legislative
proposals for the incoming administration,
while the Human Rights
Campaign published its own advice
for Biden.
While some of the recommendations
pertain to important goals
for the future, other points are focused
on restoring basic LGBTQrelated
initiatives from the Obama
era that were gutted by the Trump
administration throughout the
past four years in ways especially
harsh for transgender individuals.
The coalition of six organizations
are calling on the president-elect
to create a federal plan intended
to address nationwide violence
against transgender individuals,
especially Black trans women;
protect LGBTQ individuals from
discrimination; remove the ban
on transgender service members;
release individuals held by Immigraiton
and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) in detention centers, including
people living with HIV and
trans asylum seekers; and create
goals to end the HIV epidemic and
HIV-related health disparities in
the United States by 2025.
The coalition is also asking Biden
to require the Federal Bureau of
Prisons to house individuals in accordance
with their gender identity;
restore the nation’s role in promoting
human rights internationally;
order the Department of Justice to
evaluate and make changes to its
litigation efforts regarding the Affordable
Care Act, the Title IX provisions
on sex discrimination in
publicly funded shcools, and other
President-Elect Joe Biden, speaking during an LGBTQ town hall last year, has vowed to swiftly address
LGBTQ issues once he takes offi ce.
The American and Rainbow Flags were joined in celebration when the Associated Press and the networks
called the election for Joe Biden on November 7. More scenes of the jubilation on pages 4-5.
areas; establish an LGBTQ equity
policy council; and direct federal
agencies to protect LGBTQ youth,
queer seniors, and transgender
people across housing, healthcare,
and education.
While the coalition is also encouraging
Biden to prioritize a
series of specifi c bills, the fate of
those legislative proposals will
depend on the results of the two
looming US Senate runoff races in
Georgia scheduled for January 5,
which will determine whether Repulbicans
continue to control the
upper chamber, holding the power
to obstruct Biden initiatives.
REUTERS/ MIKE BLAKE
DONNA ACETO
The top three bills on the coalition’s
wish list are the Equality
Act, a measure establishing comprehensive
LGBTQ nondiscrimination
protections; the Do No Harm
Act, which would refocus the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act to
prevent it from being used to discriminate
against others; and the
Every Child Deserves a Family Act,
which would address discrimination
against LGBTQ families and
youth in foster care.
The coalition is also calling for
passage of the GLOBE Act, a bill
that would embed LGBTQ issues
into American foreign policy and
POLITICS
diplomacy; the Ruthie and Connie
LGBT Elder Americans Act (named
for former New Yorkers Ruthie Berman
and the late Connie Kurtz,
who retired to Florida years ago),
designating queer seniors as a population
in need of greater resources
under the Older Americans Act;
and the Safe Schools Improvement
Act, which would require schools
to implement anti-bullying and
anti-harassment policies on the
basis of race, color, national origin,
sex, disability, sexual orientation,
gender identity, and religion.
HRC is offering similar advice to
the Biden team, but the nationwide
LGBTQ lobbying organization’s extensive
list of 85 suggestions also
sheds light on other overdue initiatives,
such as the campaign to
remove the ban on sexually active
gay and bisexual from donating
blood (the FDA offers a vague explanation
regarding how that policy
impacts transgender and nonbinary
individuals).
HRC also asks the Biden team
to appoint out LGBTQ Supreme
Court justices and cabinet members,
ban conversion therapy, bolster
federal data collection surrounding
sexual orientation and
gender identity, unravel the slew
of anti-LGBTQ actions taken by
the Trump administration’s Department
of Health and Human
Services, and expand outreach to
homeless LGBTQ veterans, among
other recommendations.
“Over the last four years, the
Trump-Pence administration has
systemically attacked LGBTQ
people and our nation’s most sacred
institutions — our courts,
our Constitution, and our fundamental
civil rights,” HRC president
Alphonso David said in a written
statement. “The Biden-Harris administration
has the opportunity
to not only put our democracy
back on track but deliver real positive
change for LGBTQ people’s
daily lives. The Blueprint for Positive
Change 2020 charts the next
administration’s path forward to
improve the lives of LGBTQ people
and move the needle closer toward
full equality.”
GayCityNews.com | November 19 - November 25, 2020 3
/GayCityNews.com
